There is racist, then there’s Jim Russell

I’ve become fascinated with the story about the writings of Jim Russell, the candidate for Congress (R-NY 18). This story in Salon tells the gory details: “In the 2001 essay (.pdf) “The Western Contribution to World History,” Russell wrote in opposition of interracial relationships — and integration of schools — and praised the anti-Semitic theories of T.S. Eliot. It appeared in the publication Occidental Quarterly.”

Lest you think this is just “political correctness” run amok, perhaps you should read the piece. Several articles link to the 2001 The Occidental Quarterly article. Unfortunately, the link is dead – article is Not Found, though, for a brief time, it resided on David Duke’s website – yes, THAT David Duke.
I did purloin a copy of it, though in fact, a lot of it is pretty boring. You might be better – despite the Shirley Sherrod debacle – to read excerpts, such as in the cartoon below.Picture from Tea Party Jesus. Used by permission.

What I found most interesting about the whole thing is the very existence of The Occidental Quarterly. Here’s a story from just last week.

White advocates are the most despised minority in the world. Throughout the post-West, “racist” is used as a slur by both conservatives and progressives. Even loose affiliations with proscribed figures or organizations can doom a political career. The vast majority of whites, out of fear, desire for conformity, or sincere conviction, believe that “racism” is a sin perhaps only rivaled by murder….
Nonetheless, white advocates dominate political discourse in the United States today. Almost every issue, movement, and political figure is analyzed not on its own terms, but as a possible indicator of white racial consciousness and explicit white political mobilization.
The most important development in contemporary politics is the growth of the “Tea Party” movement… The problems with this movement from a white advocacy perspective are obvious. The group is focused on narrow fiscal concerns, ruthlessly purges any hint of explicit racial consciousness… In responding to charges of racism, Tea Party leaders look for minorities to put behind the speakers’ podium rather than attacking or even just dismissing the charge itself…
Even admitting all that, it is impossible not to view the rise of the Tea Parties as a powerful example of implicit white racial consciousness. Some white advocates read into the Tea Party movement a racial consciousness that they think already exists, but is merely submerged. White advocate and webmaster of White News Now Jamie Kelso claimed “Every time I yelled ‘We want our country back!’, I am sure that 99% of the 99% White crowd that responded so enthusiastically to that chant UNDERSTOOD that the ‘we’ and the ‘our’ in ‘we want our country back!’ was (and is) our White people.” Pat Buchanan noted in his July 22 syndicated column, “For the first time in our lifetimes outside the South, white racial consciousness has visibly begun to rise…”
Writing in Slate under the title of “White Fright,” Christopher Hitchens noticed the curiously apolitical and confused ideological nature of Glenn Beck’s recent “Restoring Honor” rally. The only way to make sense of it, he concluded, was that, “In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one…”
Implicit whiteness is perhaps stronger now than at any time in the last 25 years. However, the barriers against explicit white racial consciousness are also stronger, and Tea Party leaders, if not all of their followers, gleefully participate in building those barriers. The result is a nameless anxiety, a vague feeling, a shapeless zeitgeist of white anxiety that manifests itself in an active but incoherent opposition to Mexican imperialism, Islamic triumphalism, and other cultural slights against the “Real America.”

But THIS one, you SHOULD read the whole thing. Tell me if you find it as scary as I do.